The Minister in charge of Service New Brunswick said Wednesday the province hasn’t made a decision about whether or not to extend the province’s temporary rent cap.

However, by Thursday afternoon Mary Wilson was no longer a provincial cabinet minister after Premier Blaine Higgs shuffled his cabinet.

In June, the provincial government implemented rent control following campaigns by groups representing tenants.

While the rent cap is in place, landlords cannot raise the rent by more than 3.8 per cent. But that measure is scheduled to expire at the end of the year. 

It caught many observers by surprise in March when the province introduced a budget that included the temporary rent cap retroactive to January.

The Higgs government, under pressure from the association representing landlords, had previously refused those demands.

But inflation reached its highest rate in decades this year, as tenants reported rent hikes reaching upwards of 50 per cent. 

And with low-income renters facing eviction in the midst of the COVID-19 critic, groups including ACORN NB and the NB Coalition for Tenants Rights called for the government to implement rent control. 

Now renters’ rights groups are calling for the government to make that rent cap permanent. 

The issue boiled over on Wednesday during Question Period in the Legislative Assembly. 

Memramcook-Tantramar Green Party MLA Megan Mitton — along with Shediac Bay-Dieppe Liberal MLA Robert Gauvin — pressed the Minister of Service New Brunswick, Mary Wilson, for answers. 

Higgs dumped Wilson from cabinet on Thursday, replacing her with former engineer and business executive Jill Green.

For the record, CHMA brings you the Question Period exchange. First, Gauvin asked what people vulnerable to big rent hikes should expect, as rent control ends at the end of the year.